18 October 2012

Disclosure through Disney in 2013?

Earlier this year, Silver Screen Saucers asked: “Could
it be that Disney is producing a dramatization of the flying saucer fever that swept
America in 1952?” That question was prompted by the
enigmatic title 1952 – a “top secret” Disney production quietly announced by
the House of Mouse back in June of 2011. We were told that a script was being
penned by Damon Lindelof (Prometheus, Cowboys and Aliens), and
nothing more. We subsequently learned that Brad Bird (TheIron
Giant, The Incredibles) had signed on to co-write and direct.

The film will
also reportedly follow a man in his late 40s through this alien ordeal.

Lindelof and
Bird are aiming to re-create the magic of Close Encounters of the Third
Kind.

1952 co-writer Damon Lindelof

Vulture also reported on
the movie’s mysterious back-story, which goes like this: last spring,Disney’s head of production, Sean Bailey, arranged for screenwriter
Lindelof to be given access to “one of the studio’s odder curiosities: a
banker’s box of files and documents that had been left moldering in Walt
Disney’s personal development lab, WED Enterprises, which later became the
studio’s vaunted Imagineering department.”

According to Vulture’s “spies”, the box was
originally labelled with the title of Disney’s 1965 comedy That Darn Cat!, which had been crossed out and in its place
was written “1952.” Apparently, inside the box was a “collection of documents
and primary source materials that, when looked at all together, indicated that
someone had been working on a project (movie? Theme park ride?) about alien
contact."

The identity of this “someone” from Disney’s bygone era working
on a project about alien contact has not been specified. As it turns out,
though, we may already know... the name “Ward Kimball” springs to mind.

While
at a MUFON symposium in 1979, Oscar-winning Disney animator and Imagineer Ward
Kimball (the man behind Jiminy Cricket, The Mad Hatter and Pinocchio) claimed
that the United States Air Force (USAF) had approached Walt Disney himself during
the 1950s to request his cooperation on a documentary about UFOs that would
help acclimate the American public to the reality of extraterrestrials.
According to Kimball, in exchange for Disney’s cooperation, the USAF offered to
furnish the production with genuine UFO footage. Kimball claimed that Disney
accepted the deal and – ever faithful to Uncle Sam – began work immediately on
the USAF project. It wasn’t long, however, before the USAF reneged on its offer
of UFO footage. When Kimball challenged the USAF Colonel overseeing the project
he was told that "there was indeed plenty of UFO footage, but that neither
Kimball, nor anyone else was going to get access to it." The project was
then abandoned and eventually forgotten by all but the few who had worked on it.

So,
could Disney’s mysterious 1952 be a 21 Century revival of its
aborted 1950s UFO acclimation project? Based on the information thus far
presented, there would certainly appear to be a connection... but hold on there,
because here’s where it gets confusing...

Within
hours of publishing his inside scoop on 1952, Vulture’s Claude Brodesser-Akner
posted the following correction to his report:

“Apparently I misunderstood my source for this story, who
contacted me after it was posted to clarify that while it is true that 1952 is very much in the spirit of Close
Encounters (and centers around a Roy
Neary-like protagonist), it is not in fact about an alien encounter. My
apologies for the erroneous plot description.”

Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) making first contact in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Hmmm.
So when the unnamed source told Vulture: “It will be set largely in the present day and it is about aliens making
contact here on Earth,” and that the aborted Disney project that inspired it
was “about alien contact,” apparently this was just a miscommunication. And yet
it is just like Close Encounters of the Third
Kind. Hmmm. Could it be that Vulture’s
source (almost certainly an official viral ‘leaker’ for Disney) spilled one too
many beans in his revelation of the movie’s alien aspect, has been reprimanded
by the studio and has subsequently issued a rather implausible “correction”?

It’s hard to say for sure, but given the past UFO-themed
credits of screenwriter Damon Lindelof, and in light of Disney’s longstanding fascination with the UFO enigma
– not to mention the strong UFO-related connotations of the 1952
title – my money is still firmly on this movie being about aliens.

In terms of the movie’s marketing, Vulture also reported the
following:

“The
collaborators are planning an elaborate, very J.J. Abrams–like advanced
marketing campaign that will start before filming even begins. The idea is to
stage a treasure hunt for intrigued moviegoers that will gradually reveal clues
about and build intrigue for the film right up until its release, and which may
or may not be related to the contents of the box.”

Perhaps, then, the “box” is just a viral marketing device
vaguely inspired by Kimball’s story? Or perhaps it is, as the source originally
stated, a real box with real photos and documentation that have directly
inspired a new and highly secretive Disney project? Perhaps the box is a remnant
of the aborted Disney UFO documentary?

Indulging the latter assumption for a moment – that this
new movie will feature real photos and/or footage of UFOs and perhaps even
their occupants – what would be the point? If presented in a fictional context
(as apparently it would be), said material would immediately be fictionalized
by way of its presentation in a “science-fiction” movie. Also, in today’s world
of photorealistic CGI and Performance Capture technologies, debates surrounding
“real” and “faked” footage would be very difficult to resolve. We could be
looking at genuine alien landing footage from any time during the modern UFO
era and automatically assume it to be CGI.

So again I’ll say, “hmmm.” Intriguing stuff, for sure,
but until Disney hits us with more info on 1952, I’ll quit with the speculation.
Watch this space...

It's not been shelved. It's been re-titled Tomorrowland and is scheduled for release in 2015. Still no real clue as to whether or not it involves aliens. But time travel and/or other dimensions may feature.

Great find! Disney has indeed long had a fascination with the topic of UFO's ("Race to Witch Mountain" and "Flight of the Navigator" being two prime examples). Disclosure is going to have to come about with the public being acclimated to the concept gradually, not suddenly, so this would not surprise me in the least.

The Mission to Mars movie was enough to tell me that Disney has no idea what the truth is about aliens or UFOs. They steal ideas from Coast to Coast and turn a juicy steak into a corn dog. No one wants the truth to be revealed and no one wants to lose their corporate paycheck by speculating on the aliens being real or portraying them as real. To assume the aliens are even "united" and not separate species with their own agenda has been the greatest fallacy in these movies.

Lindelof worked with JJ Abrams on Lost, and JJ Abrams made Super 8, a homage to ET: The Extraterrestrial that was co-produced by Steven Spielberg. How far down the rabbit hole does this go? I won't be convinced Disney's involved in ET disclosure/acclimation though until they remake The Cat From Outer Space!

Or, as part of the notorious CIA Robertson Panel's media recommendations, the approach to Disney by the government could have been intended to produce a propaganda film to DEBUNK the then developing UFO/Alien scenario generated by the 1952 UFO wave which culminated in the dual July weekends of UFO activity around and over Washington, D.C. and which inspired great concerns by Truman, et al, over the potential for hysteria that further belief and interest in the UFO phenomenon might have generated on the part of the public.

I also would not be surprised if there will be a new Roswell incident movie by, say, late 2013 or the summer of 2014. Time will tell.

"UFO Movie"

Robbie Graham's Working Definition:

Any movie that taps directly into any aspect of UFO mythology or notably draws inspiration from UFOlogical literature, incorporating into its plot references to frequently debated UFOlogical phenomena, events and locales, as well as specialised UFOlogical terminology.

A UFO movie need not be about UFOs, per se, nor feature traditional UFOlogical iconography, but will nevertheless often devote a respectable amount of its running time to the dramatisation of imagined human/alien interactions, usually - though not always - in the context of a 'first contact' scenario in which the extraterrestrials assume the role of visitor/invader. In other words, the UFO movie frequently is concerned with the problems inherent from a human perspective in earthly encounters with extraterrestrials.